


St James's Park

by i_claudia



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Merlin (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Fluff, M/M, Podfic Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-16
Updated: 2009-03-16
Packaged: 2017-11-10 08:11:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/464108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_claudia/pseuds/i_claudia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a small lake near Camelot which will one day become quite a famous park, and the ducks living there will grow fat and canny off of the bread tossed to them by undercover operatives and ex-KGB agents during secret meetings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	St James's Park

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ [here](http://i-claudia.livejournal.com/21186.html#cutid1). (16 March 2009)
> 
> Podfic by lest_we_ship available [here](http://amplificathon.livejournal.com/552441.html) or [here](http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/st-jamess-park)!

There is a small lake near Camelot which will one day become quite a famous park, and the ducks living there will grow fat and canny off of the bread tossed to them by undercover operatives and ex-KGB agents during secret meetings.

At this particular moment in history, however, it is still secluded; still surrounded by old trees and a hushed, reverent kind of silence which in future ages mankind will come to expect only in particularly impressive cathedrals. The angel likes it for this reason. Performing minor miracles and saving souls is all well and good for a day’s work, but sometimes he needs to breathe, to away from the bustle of humanity, loud and reeking of smoke and joyfully alive.

He heaves a contented sigh for the sheer pleasure of it, and settles against a tree to watch the ducks. The ducks watch him, paddling mistrustfully just out of reach but not so far out that if there are any crumbs forthcoming they will not be able to put up a good fight for them.

The silence does not last particularly long. Just as the angel is closing his eyes to better enjoy the feeling of the dappled sun on his face, there is a remarkable crashing in the undergrowth.

 _Perfect_ , the angel thinks, trying his very best not to think resentful thoughts. _More noise._ He is fairly sure he has a good idea of who it is, so when it turns out to be the blond prince and his latest manservant, it comes as a bit of a shock.

“Keep up, Merlin!” the prince – Arthur, the angel remembers now – calls out.

“Why don’t you try hacking through brambles with the supply pack on _your_ back?” Merlin shoots back, clearly frustrated; he would probably rather be doing almost anything else than spending a hot summer day crawling around in a forest getting utterly filthy and being scratched by thorns.

“But I’m the prince,” Arthur sing-songs, flopping down on the bank and tugging his boots off, focused solely on getting his feet into the cool water as fast as is humanly possible.

The angel makes a face. He has never been much of one for royalty, but every few generations he’ll make an exception. He hopes this young man turns out to be one of them, or the world will be in for some serious trouble. _Ineffability_ , he thinks to calm himself. There is always a plan.

“ _That_ is the future of this blessed island, angel?” a deep voice says behind him, contempt practically oozing out of the very syllables, and the angel nearly makes a very undignified jump from fright. “You should seriously start looking into a replacement.”

He really had been hoping for a century without Crowley, despite the tentative, unspoken Arrangement they seem to have developed. “Really, my dear,” he says reprovingly. “You shouldn’t be so quick to judge.”

“Sure I should be,” the demon drawls, sprawling out on the grass behind him. “Besides, if he’s as insufferable as he sounds like it won’t be half as hard as I thought it would to pull him down.”

The angel glares at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere in Iberia right now?”

“They won’t need me around for at least a couple of centuries,” the demon answers, and yawns. “Plenty of time for me to hang around here.”

“I do wish you wouldn’t,” the angel says pointedly, and hushes the demon before he can say anything. “Quiet, the ducks will hear you and give us away.”

The demon looks affronted. “Aziraphale, we are demo—” he cuts himself off before the angel can really start to radiate holy affront. “We are _immortal beings_. The humans aren’t going to notice us.”

“There’s something about the skinny one,” Aziraphale murmurs. “He’s sharper than most.”

“Well that doesn’t count for much, considering the rest of them are too thick to find the nose on their face,” Crowley snorts, but he quiets and listens with feigned disinterest.

“...insufferable,” Merlin is saying. “Sire.”

Arthur is sprawled on the bank, legs submerged up to his knees in the lake. “You only say that out of love,” he says, waving a lazy, careless hand above his head.

“Actually,” Merlin says dryly, “I say it because you are a huge prat who thinks he’s the greatest gift the world has ever seen.”

Arthur rolls over and grins widely enough that Aziraphale can see that even from a distance, even through the bush he is concealed behind, it is large and brilliant and potentially fatal to whoever the prince might be trying to charm. “But Merlin,” Arthur replies, “I _am_ the greatest gift the world has ever seen.”

“Pride,” Crowley remarks, sounding smug. “Are you sure he’s not one of ours?”

“No, he’s definitely ours,” Aziraphale says. “So is the other one, I think.”

“You think?”

“He’s hard to pin down,” Aziraphale explains, sitting up on his knees to see the two humans better through the bush. “The whole magic thing makes it a trifle more complicated.”

Merlin is blushing now, busying himself with the ties on the pack; the angel suspects Arthur’s grin has a large part to do with the red flush creeping up from Merlin’s collarbone and spreading across his neck.

“Well, well,” Crowley says, amused. “Would you look at that.”

Arthur has reached up and tugged Merlin away from fiddling with whatever is in the pack, pulled him down to land on the earth with a soft _whump_.

“Forget about the ducks,” he says as Merlin makes a distinctly complaining noise. “They have enough to eat anyway; it’s the middle of summer.”

“I did not,” Merlin says with as much dignity as he can summon when his long limbs are still hopelessly tangled, “haul all this bread out here just to haul it right back to Camelot.”

Arthur rolls closer to him, reaching out to wrap his fingers around one of Merlin’s pale wrists. “Don’t tell me feeding the ducks is the only reason you came out here with me,” he says, lowering his voice until Aziraphale has to really focus in order to hear it.

Merlin blushes even more, if possible. “Well,” he murmurs, and Aziraphale notes with interest that even his unfortunate ears have turned bright red. “You are also an idiot and probably would have found some mythical beast to be injured by if I hadn’t come along with you.”

“Hmm,” says Arthur. “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps you should give me advice about how to subdue such creatures.” He sits up and leans over the other boy, pinning the wrist he still holds above Merlin’s head and swinging one knee over him, effectively trapping him.

“Perhaps I should,” Merlin says, his voice thick, carding his free hand through Arthur’s hair and pulling him down.

Aziraphale turns primly away to see Crowley grinning at him.

“Still sure they’re not ours, angel?”

If he were human and subject to the human tangle of vices as well as virtues, Aziraphale thinks, he would probably push Crowley into the lake. “Yes,” he says instead. “Quite sure.”

Crowley leans back, enjoying Aziraphale’s discomfort. “How is the story supposed to go? Arthur unites Albion, becomes legend, takes a queen...” His grin grows wider, positively wicked. “I didn’t realize what _kind_ of queen we were talking about.”

“It’s ineffable, Crowley,” Aziraphale retorts. “Who are we to say what plans are laid for them? They have a great destiny together.”

“Oh, _quite_ the great destiny together,” says Crowley, chuckling to himself. Aziraphale sighs.

“Leave them be,” he says, standing up and carefully brushing the dirt off his clothes.

Crowley widens his eyes in false disbelief. “Leave? And miss this show?”

Aziraphale beckons with his fingers, unmoved. He was taken in by the wide-eyes trick back in the third century and has not fallen for it since. “There’s someone I want you to meet,” he says. “I think you’ll get along splendidly.”

Crowley rolls his eyes and rises, willing the leaves sticking to his clothes to fall off and disintegrate. “You always think I’ll get along splendidly with your friends, and they all end up being completely insufferable prigs with absolutely no sense of humour,” he complains.

“Not this one,” Aziraphale says, allowing himself a small smile as he thinks of caves and large teeth and terrible attempts at hinting about the future. “You’ll like him. He’s very much like yourself.”

He leads Crowley off in the direction of the castle, sparing only one glance back at Merlin and Arthur, still entwined on the grassy bank of the lake, the ducks watching them with doleful interest.

 _Quite a destiny together, indeed_ , he thinks.


End file.
